What to expect after filing A & A claim

My wife and I just recently filed a claim for Aid and Attendance for her great Uncle that we look after, he is 92 and we just moved him into a assisted living facility almost two months ago.We completed and mailed in his claim to the local VA, and we do not know what to expect next.
Do they contact you when the claim is recieved, or do you just wait it out and hope for the best?
I did not find this site until after we had mailed in his claim , so I hope we did it correctly and completly.
Thanks for any and all help.

There is no simple answer to your question. If you read through the postings on this forum you will find a wide range of experiences both negative and positive.

There are so many factors that go into to this from who filed the application, how thoroughly was it completed, the city and state you filed in, the physicians’' statement as to the mental capabilities of your uncle - dementia, Alzheimer’s etc. As you can see there are a lot of factors to be considered. If your uncle suffers from either of these, did you submit a 21-22a with the application?

Average time for processing right now is running 8-9 months just to get a determination on the claim. You might get lucky and be one of those who hear back in a much shorter amount of time, but think it is better to err on the side of the average. You can also expect it to be approximately 90+ days just to get something stating that the application has been received.

Take the time to read through all the postings to educate yourself. There is a lot of information here as well as other's experiences and what they did when running into obstacles.

We are glad that you found us, just wish it hadn’t been after the fact, and hope that you will share the site with others that may stand to benefit from this pension.

Thanks for replying. We are in the Detroit Mich area and my wife and I both worked on completing the form for her Uncle.He suffers from macular degeneration, and is leaglly blind in one eye, and losing his vision in the other.So his needs for assisted living are quite obvious.We had both his regular physicians report and his eye doctors report that we included with his claim.He is still as sharp as a tack, but just cannot see to be able to cook for himself, let alone all of the other day to day activities that we all take for granted.We did not submit a 21-22a form, we actually did not know of it before reading about it on this site.Although I really don't think that we need it, as he is completly able to make his own decisions.In the meanwhile I will keep reading and I will keep everyone informed.Thanks for the help and for this great source of information.

Well two pieces of good news for you. (1) His being legally blind should immediately qualify him for the pension. (2) Not having to raise the Fiduciary issue will prevent the VA from being able to use that as a means to slow down the process.

Given his age and being legally blind, you would have means to expedite this claim if it starts to get delayed. If you don't hear anything back at the end of 90 days, you may need to start making some inquiries. Since you did not submit a 21-22a they probably will not speak directly with you or your wife, however if you call while you are with your uncle, you should be able to work around that.

Let's keep positive thoughts that your application will go through the process without any issues.

My friend applied for her mother the first of March and received checks in July. Her mother is legally blind and in assisted living. Her process went a lot smoother than mine, due to the fact that her mother is mentally competent, but blind. We are in Texas, so don't know what the difference in time could be for you. Good luck!!

Well we recieved our first correspondence from the VA.Our claim has been recieved and is being processed, but they need more information.They are requesting medical evidence of his needs.They have sent us a number of forms to fill out and return.
The first is form 21-2680 which the best that I can tell is a medical evaulation form to be completed by a VA medical examiner .They also sent us a letter stating that the local VA medical facitly would be contacting him to set up an appointment to evaluate him.
They state they also have contacted his doctors, and have requested his medical records, but have sent us form 21-4142, authoriztion form for consent to release medical records, from any additional sources for evidence.
They also included form 21-4138, statement in support of claim.
Lastly they included a VCAA notice response letter that says if we need more than 30 days to submit additional evidence, to sign and return , otherwise they will decide the claim based on what they currently have.

My questions now are
1) is this the standard response and steps to move forward?
2)what should we expect with a VA medical exam?
3)should we seek help in completing any of these forms? A number of VSO's were listed to seek help with in submitting the claim.
4) is there anything we should or should not do or say at this point to help our claim?

It sounds as though there may have been some confusion on your initial application that has the VA thinking you are applying for service connected compensation rather than straight forward Aid & Attendance. The only form should have been the Physician’s statement and there would have been no need for him to be seen by a VA doctor/examiner. In other words, you are correct in questioning if this is out of the normal process for a A&A application.

Hopefully you submitted a 21-22a with the application so that you can call the VA and speak with them about the claim, which we would suggest you do as soon as possible. This may delay the claim, but you need to be clear as do they about what you are filing for.

The correspondence letter definetly states non service connected disability and special monthly pension.I wonder if is age (92) has anything to do with it?
We did not submit form 21-22a, but I guess we better do that.
Should that form be mailed in seperatly or with our reply back with any additonal information to the VA?

I hired an elder care Attorney to help with the claim for my father who is in Assisted Living suffereing from dementia. We filed this past April. It took about 60 days to get a letter saying the claim was being processed. Last week I recv'd another letter stating that they had requested medical records from his Doctors in June and had only had 1 response. So now I am having to individually contact the Doctors, obtain the records and forward them myself. Why they waited 60 days to let me know this is beyond me. Fortunatley I have POA and a signed consent to obtain medical records.

It truly is a frustrating process. In my case, I am supplementing his rent and other expenses so I am anxious for the benefits to start.

Update, both of his Dr's, have been contacted and requests have been made and returned.We also received our date for his medical exam at the VA.Two weeks from now, with two appointments on the same day.One with the optometry Doctor and another with I think just a medical Doctor.We are still collecting paper work on our end for submital to the VA , hopefully we will have that done soon.I will contiue to update as things progress.